


Dark Psyches

by dark_pookha



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Original Work
Genre: Drabble Collection, Microfiction, Trigger Warning: Cancer, Violence, short story collection, trigger warning: mass murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27360439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_pookha/pseuds/dark_pookha
Summary: A collection of microfictions and drabbles written for the Fangtastic Carnevil on FFT.
Kudos: 1





	1. Penance

"You can't go in there." The nurse barred the way with an arm, but the tall man with the dark eyes and slicked-back hair pushed through.

"Go away," he said quietly in her ear as he passed.

She turned on her heels and left immediately.

The man went up to the bed. His prey was there, a tube running up her leg and disappearing under her short hospital gown and another tube running from a bag to a needle stuck in her wrist. He clucked and pulled the needle out of her wrist. Immediately, the machine it was attached to started to beep shrilly. He waved a hand at it and it stopped in a small puff of smoke.

"Janine," he whispered, but his voice filled the room.

She shuddered and her eyes fluttered.

"Janine," he called again and her back arched in a way that her withered frame shouldn't have been capable of. Her cracked lips opened in a moan.

"No," she said barely audibly.

"Oh, yes." He lowered his lips to her wrinkled neck and kissed her softly. He slid his mouth up to her ear and whispered again.

"Janine, for the 3rd time and last, I call thee."

Her eyes opened and she saw him. She tried to shrink back, but the hospice bed left her nowhere to go.

"Ah, finally awake, I see, maybe for the first time in thirty years." He smiled and she tried to scream, but only a wheeze came out.

"Time to pay." He trailed a finger down her neck.

"I want to die," she croaked.

"Oh, no, not yet. You have to pay your debt." He kissed her and her body arched again. She resisted at first, then melted into his kiss.

When he pulled back, color was returning to her lips and her pallor lessened,

His hair, now streaked with gray, visibly thinned as she watched. He ran a hand through it and sighed.

"My penance is almost over and yours yet to begin. Dark power requires a dark cost and it's your turn to pay." He kissed her again, longer this time. She could feel her body getting stronger, but the pain of the cancer was still there; the dull throb in her back and side.

"You can feel it now," he said, but now his voice was wheezing.

"Yes," she said in a strong voice she hadn't had in years.

"What do I do? How do I pay my penance?" she asked.

He laughed.

"You'll have to figure it out for yourself, just like I did."

He kissed her again, this time holding it until his body turned to dust and fell on her, now glowing with health.

She pulled the catheter out and sat up, relishing the burn of it for just the moment it took her to realize that the pain was still there.

She touched her side and back where the cancer had been and felt the heat of an infection.

Was thirty years of power worth this? Was anything worth this?

She wiped the dust of the genie, or warlock, or devil, or whatever he had been and she now was, off her and slid her legs over the edge of the bed.

The nurse stuck her head around the door and looked in.

"Come to me," Janine commanded and the nurse entered, blank-eyed.

"I'm completely recovered and am checking out now; do you understand?"

The nurse nodded.

"You will find me some clothes that fit and return; also all your money, your debit card, PIN and car keys."

The nurse nodded again.

"Go." Janine ordered.

When the nurse had left, Janine put her head in her hands and sobbed.


	2. Hunger

"That one, daddy?" the curly-haired little girl asked.

"No, look how he's carrying himself; he's a soldier or a policeman." Her dad squeezed her hand and she smiled.

"We want someone who's not so strong they'll fight back, but not so weak that there's nothing to sustain us." He grinned and tousled her hair.

"What does sustain mean?" she asked plaintively

"It means what we need to live. What do we need?" He asked like he'd asked this before.

She closed in her eyes for a second, remembering.

"We need food, water, sunlight and...and...and each other!" she shouted, her face lighting up with having pleased him.

"That's right." He knelt in front of her and straightened her lapel.

"And who else can we tell about this?"

"No one, daddy." She looked up suddenly and pointed.

"What about him?" she pointed at a teenage boy, who was managing to ride a skateboard and slouch insolently; something that didn't seem possible.

"Hmm, maybe." He stood and stepped into the path of the boy.

The boy stepped off his skateboard and kicked it up to grab it.

"Watch yourself, dude," the boy said to the man.

"Terribly sorry," the man said, "but my daughter would like to see your skateboard; is that okay?" He put a trace of compulsion into it and added a smidge of this is okay.

"Sure," the boy said, and handed the skateboard to the girl.

"Can you show me how it works?" she asked and held out a hand. The man smiled as he heard her put please help me into her voice.

"If it's okay with your dad." The teen looked at the man, who nodded.

The girl handed the skateboard back to the boy and they all walked together to the skate park, the boy listening attentively as the girl prattled about her school and friends in the way of the child just out of toddlerhood.

The man sat on a bench and watched as the boy showed the girl how to ride. She giggled and fell a few times, but got right back up. The first time it happened the boy looked at the man nervously, but the man merely smiled and waved.

While the girl and the boy played on the skateboard, the man looked around for more prey. After a moment, he got up and sat next to a bored-looking man watching another boy on rollerblades.

"That your son?" the man asked.

"Yeah, I gotta watch him while his mom's at work."

"He's good. That's my little girl over there, learning how to skateboard." He laughed.

"Is ‘learning to skateboard' a phrase? It sounds weird." Self-deprecation, you are at ease.

They conversed easily about their children and the tribulations of being a single parent. When the father of the rollerblader paused to look at his son, the man closed his second eyelid and looked at him. He had covered the other man in spores and the tracking would be easy. He chanced a quick glance at the girl and the skateboarder and the boy was also covered in spores.

The rollerblader's father turned back and the man just barely shifted his second eyelid back in time.

"Nice meeting you, but we've got to go."

He stood.

"Honey! Time to go!" he shouted at the girl. She pretended to pout, said something to the boy who had been teaching her and then skipped to the man.

"Okay, daddy." She took the man's hand.

As they left, he whispered in her ear.

"You did well."


	3. Punishment

Lucifer regarded his demesne. Hell ran orderly and clean, at least here. He knew that in the depths, the bodies burned to feed his furnaces, but he made sure that no one here in Dis could see it. From the balcony of his palace, he could see the souls below, scurrying on their ways, tending to their small afterlives. Amongst them, he could see the demons who were their jailers, tormenters, friends, co-workers, lovers, spouses and sometimes punishers; sometimes all in one.

As he watched a burly demon stepped in front of a pedestrian who struggled under a heavy wicker backpack filled with bricks. The walker didn't see the demon and smacked into him. He squeaked and tried to back away, clearly apologizing, but the demon sneered and back-handed him. Blood sprayed from the man's nose onto the pristine white wall and the man fell, bricks spilling out from his backpack.

He tried to stand and the demon slapped him casually then picked him up by his legs and shook him until all the bricks had fallen out of the backpack. The man screamed and protested, but the demon just kept shaking. The demon tossed the man aside contemptuously and went on its way. The man made sure the demon was truly gone before standing, dropping the backpack and running off.

Lucifer snapped his fingers and both the demon and the man were suddenly before him

"What are your names?" he asked them.

"Michael Smithfield," the man said.

"Belphagorzal the Belligerent," the hulking demon said.

"Why did you torment Michael? Were you under orders to?"

"No, my lord," the demon said, falling to his knees.

"I merely meant to give him extra punishment." It averted its eyes from Lucifer.

"And you, Michael, what is your punishment?"

"My punishment was to wander Hell forever, a load of bricks on my back." He lifted his head and boldly met Lucifer's eyes.

"Unless a demon were to relieve me of that load; then I would be free of it."

"Free of that punishment, but not Hell," Lucifer replied.

Michael averted his eyes and Lucifer laughed.

"I think you provoked Belphagorzal deliberately, didn't you?"

Michael gulped, but nodded.

"Yes, my lord."

"Belphagorzal, had you considered that you might be freeing him of his punishment?" Lucifer's voice turned the icy cold of the ninth circle.

"No, my lord; I had not considered that."

"Very well."

Lucifer snapped his fingers again and the backpack was now on Belphagorzal, a new load of bricks in it. Belphagorzal's countenance slowly changed to Michael's.

"Also, just so you don't get the bright idea of telling the other demons that you're in disguise; no one you meet will believe anything you say."

"Now begone!"

Belphaggorzal in Michael's guise disappeared and reappeared on the street, stooped under its load.

"And you," he said to Michael who dropped to his hands and knees.

"You can't go unpunished."

Lucifer tapped his long, pointed nail on his jaw while he thought. Then he smiled.

"You will be my valet until such time as I see fit to release you."

"Yes, my lord," Michael croaked.

"Go now to the lava pits and draw me a bath."

"My lord?" Michael asked.

"Yes, I know you don't know how; but you'll figure it out."


	4. Worth It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story features Lucky Clover (Felicia Felix) from my story 'Luck is no substitute for a good plan'.
> 
> Meteorite's failed escape from the black site prison killed my parents. Any price is worth it to take my revenge on him.
> 
> Warning: supervillain style mass murder.

Meteorite's escape had failed; my parents were dead and I was helpless to aid them. I watched the grainy feed I had hacked from the black site's cameras. The guards were strapping the anti-Mutant restraints on Meteorite, doubling them to fit around his tree-trunk thick arms and legs. They had to quintuple them to get them around his neck.

I partitioned my mind into eight parts and started pulling luck from the guards again. It was strained and slow over the distance and the camera feed, but I kept at it. If I had seen Meteorite's escape attempt coming sooner, I could have aided him more, but I still had to sleep and I'd missed most of it. All my attempts to sleep with some partitions of my mind and stay awake with others had resulted in waking delusions. I couldn't afford those in the pursuit of my long-term plan to kill Ultra.

Ultra: just his name bubbled hatred in me. No one knew where he'd come from when he appeared in the 30's. He hadn't visibly aged much in that time, and he'd foiled so many supervillains' plans, including my parents Dr Eugenica and SirRebral. They'd been renditioned to the black site as long as I had been alive. My adopted parents didn't know that I'd figured out who my real parents were; I was still their golden children, the perfect child, the valedictorian and good girl. If they only knew; I am the villain of this story.

How to get to Ultra? He was almost indestructible. I had experimented with my luck powers on him and found that I could pull luck from him and give it to him, but I had no clear way to actually harm him. Even though I pulled all his luck out and left him the unluckiest person in the world, he was still so tough that he just bulled through it. I was careful not to do too much to him, or it would give me away before I was ready.

The guards were struggling now with the anti-Mutant restraints and Meteorite was stirring sluggishly. Three of my partitions came up with a new plan and started to let the other partitions know about it. I smiled. Ultra could wait, but I could make Meteorite pay now.

I doubled the splits in my mind to sixteen. It always resulted in a killer headache, but it was worth it this time. I hacked the feeds of the guards' body cams and started pulling luck from them faster with all my partitions and pushing it to Meteorite. He flexed his arms and legs, kipping up violently. Almost all of the restraints snapped. The guards yelled at each other and tried to hit him with their shock batons, but most of them failed too, and a few of them accidentally hit each other.

Meteorite killed most of them before just ramming through the reinforced concrete walls of the prison, one after the other until he'd reached the outside. He passed the morgue where my parent's bodies were, crushed by a falling roof from his first rampage through the facility.

Now that he was outside, I changed my focus. It was much harder to keep my mind partitions on him without a visual, but I could do it. I pulled all the luck out of him that I could. Eventually, he'd meet a hero who would stop him. The site was on an island in the Pacific and Meteorite paused only briefly at the beach before just plunging into the ocean. He sank to the bottom and ran along it. He knew if he kept going he'd find land somewhere and figure out where he was. I waited and kept pulling luck out with fifteen of the sixteen partitions. The other one kept a watch on the weather and spy satellites for strange activity in the Pacific. I found it within minutes, cavitation on the seafloor near Guam. He was moving at almost supersonic speeds underwater. I kept pulling luck out of him and I could feel that he was almost out of it completely.

The anomalies on the satellite started going in circles; he was lost. He turned north and slightly west and started that way. He'd almost reached Japan when it happened.

Warnings rang out from the seismometers and I watched as what should have happened in geologic time happened in seconds. The earthquake from the underwater volcanic eruption ripped along the Pacific's Ring of Fire and into Japan. I watched as Nagasaki fell again. Meteorite's flow of luck stopped and I knew he'd met his end somewhere; either the volcano or the earthquake; it didn't matter. The tsunami followed after and swept toward the Philippines and Taiwan.

I shut down all but my normal two partitions and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I'd see how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people had to pay for Meteorite's crime of killing my parents, but no matter how many it was; it was worth it.


	5. Noise Complaint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the Cthulhu mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft. I do not endorse Lovecraft's views

"Dad! Dad!" Hastur yelled at me. I stopped gibbering to listen to the young Old God.

"Dad, your gibbering is keeping the universe awake and the neighbors are complaining!" He/It oozed toward me on a solar wind.

"Phnagh!" I shrieked back at him madly, just to watch him rage.

"Stop that! I know you can understand me; and I know you can communicate like a normal being." He/It destroyed a gas giant that had bumped him and it shattered in a billion perfect pieces of crystallized ice that quickly melted and then refroze.

"Thrak!" I chucked a black hole at Him/It. He/It squeaked and dodged.

"Look, here comes Ptah and Byzor. They're not going to be as nice."

The lump of protoplasm that was Byzor rolled up, resting on a broken asteroid.

"Look, mate," it said, "we just can't have you keep up this shrieking. My worshippers are noticing and it's giving them headaches. Ptah tells me that you're influencing his people, too on his planet. Also, frankly, your hideous monotonous piping is getting on my bollocks. Stop it or we'll make you stop."

Now, I opened all my baleful eyes and gazed upon Byzor. He was unclean in mine eyes and I smote him. The little pieces of him that retained sentience tried to flee, but I flexed a pulsar and they died in a wave of radiation. Ptah shielded himself behind a sun and Hastur just endured it.

"Alright, Dad, I'm gonna go get Cthulhu since he's the only one you'll listen to."

Hastur turned and headed toward Earth with Ptah in tow where Cthulhu lay dreaming. I laughed and the cosmos echoed. Cthulhu slept and even if they awakened him, he wouldn't come to me, he'd lay waste (he was always grumpy when he woke up from a nap; just like the toddler he was).

I laughed and went back to my piping. It irritated everyone and I fucking loved it.


	6. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Harry Potter chapter. Dark Harry. Ginny has been killed and Harry goes off the rails when he finds Romilda Vane is the killer. 
> 
> Prompt: It started with a murder, then things...escalated

Ginny took a sip of her coffee, foamed at the mouth and dropped to the ground. She convulsed once, then lay limp, staring blankly.

I barely had time to move before she was dead. I tried to resurrect her with every trick I knew, but it didn't work; she was gone. I called Ritter and he showed up with a team of Aurors and Hit Wizards.

Poison. Someone had poisoned her. It had obviously been directed at her, since they'd poisoned her coffee and not the tea or milk. I never drank coffee and whoever did this had to know that. Ritter and his team went through all the suspects. I wasn't supposed to know what was going on in the investigation, but there was no way the other Aurors were going to keep anything from me.

I found out that Smithson had a lead on Romilda Vane. She'd stalked me and Ginny for a few years after Hogwarts and it had escalated immediately after we'd gotten married, but after I'd filed a restraining order and had a stern talk to her (where I told her what would happen to her if she didn't stop) she'd stopped. They also told me that Ginny had been killed with a refined basilisk venom that would have killed instantly; even phoenix tears may not have been fast enough even if a phoenix had been available.

I stirred some trouble up in the Liverpool docks with some Dark Artefact smugglers I knew were coming in so the Aurors and Hit Wizards would be distracted then I paid Romilda a visit.

She opened the door in a bathrobe, dark circles under her eyes.

"Harry?" she asked muzzily, then her eyes sharpened.

"You can't be here!" She tried to close the door, but I put my foot in it and shoved it open. It knocked her over and I stepped in and closed the door.

"Give me your wand." I told her.

"What?" she asked stupidly, sitting up.

I sighed, Stunned her and searched her. She didn't have her wand on her. While I was searching her, I saw the bruises on her arms and recognized them as grip marks; usually signs of a fight or abuse.

"Accio wand!" I shouted and her wand came zipping at me from what I assumed was her bedroom.

I summoned ropes and tied her up while I searched her flat. I found a basilisk fang quickly and her potions table folded up into what looked like a Murphy bed at first glance. I folded it out and her recipe book was open to the page for refining venom.

A photo album also lay open next to it, filled with photos of me and Ginny, with Ginny's face scribbled out and a large X over her. I tested her wand for the last spells she'd cast and they were Disillusionment and Hiding Charms.

I went back to where she was tied up in the entryway and Renervated her.

"Why?" I asked.

"Please, I didn't do it. I couldn't kill someone, and I didn't kill Ginny. Don't hurt me."

I almost fell for her tears, but steeled myself.

"I'm not going to hurt you; they are."

She looked around, confused.

I opened the door and they glided in; their holes for mouths open and already seeking.

Romilda shrieked and screamed, but only for a moment. When the Dementors had finished, I sent them on their way, then cleaned up. I used the Elder Wand for it, since I knew no one could ever get it to do something I didn't want.

I left and waited.

Smithson told me the next day about it and that I was a suspect, but there was no evidence. A few days later, they released the official report.

Murderer of Ginny Potter found drained by Dementor's Kiss. Harry Potter was a person of interest, but his House Elf confirms that Harry was home at the time of the attack.

I smiled. It had been easy to modify Kreacher's memories while he slept, since he was old and starting to get demented anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dudley gets news that his ex has died of an OD and breaks the news to Violet. (This story is featuring Dudley and Violet Dursley from my story 'Growing Up Lovegood-Potter' under my dark_pookha pseud).

"Daddy, are you okay," Violet asked.

"It--It's your Mum," I told her between sobs. "She O.D'ed and died last night."

Violet pulled up a chair next to me and sat. She took my hand and leaned on me. I could feel her tears on my shoulder and I scooped her into my lap like a younger child instead of fourteen. We held each other and sobbed in our dingy Council flat.

"It's a relief in a way," she said in a small voice. She hugged me, they got up, wiped her tears and got a tissue to wipe up her snot. She cries ugly like I do and her face was blotchy red.

I sighed and wiped my face with a handkerchief I dug out of my pocket.

"I know what you mean. I'm sad she's gone, but she wasn't here really for a long time, and now we don't have to worry about her anymore."

"I--I still love her, though," Violet said.

"She was your Mum, so that's only right."

She waved a hand at me angrily.

"But I fucking hated her, too!" she spat. "Always showing up in the middle of the fucking night, needing money or food, or just a place to squat for the night. Sometimes I wonder if we, you, were too nice to her."

"I just wanted to be here for her and give her what she needed. I got out of the life and hoped she would, too."

I poured a glass of water, drank it and threw the glass in the sink. It shattered and I got grazed by a shard that cut my thumb. Dark red blood welled to the surface and I stared at it until Violet got a plaster. She washed it off and put the plaster on my thumb.

"I'm glad you did get out of the life. I'm glad you raised me and not her. I'm glad to be your daughter and I'm proud of you."

A thought came to her. "Your cousin's wedding is in a few days; this is going to fuck it up, isn't it?"

Normally, I'd yell at her for all the ‘fucks' but I thought cursing was allowed here.

"Yeah, probably; there's gonna be tons of shit to do."

I took her by the shoulders and looked in her eyes.

"You don't have to help with any of this if you don't want to."

She shook her head.

"No, she was my Mum and I owe her that if nothing else."

"I love you," I told her and hugged her tight.

"I love you, dad."


End file.
